Algae biofuels: the wave of the future

Apr 03, 2012

Researchers at Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have assembled the draft genome of a marine algae sequence to aid scientists across the US in a project that aims to discover the best algae species for producing biodiesel fuel. The results have been published in Nature Communications.

The necessity of developing alternative, renewable fuel sources to prevent a potential energy crisis and alleviate greenhouse gas production has long been recognized. Various sources have been triedcorn for ethanol and soybeans for biodiesel, for example. But to truly meet the world's fuel needs, researchers must come up with a way to produce as much biofuel as possible in the smallest amount of space using the least amount of resources.

Enter algae. Unlike other crops like corn or soybeans, algae can use various water sources ranging from wastewater to brackish water and be grown in small, intensive plots on denuded land. While algae may still produce some CO2 when burned, it can sequester CO2 during growth in a way that fossil-fuel based energy sources obviously can't.

Scientists in VBI's Data Analysis Core (DAC), Robert Settlage, Ph.D., and Hongseok Tae, Ph.D., assisted in the assembly of the genome of Nannochloropis gaditana, a marine algae that may be capable of producing the lipid yields necessary for a viable fuel source.

"Getting the data is now the easy part. What we're doing in the DAC is enabling researchers to move beyond informatics issues of assembly and analysis to regain their focus on the biological implications of their research," said Settlage.

Further analysis revealed that with fairly straightforward genetic modification, N. gaditana should be capable of producing biofuel on an industrial scale, which may be the wave of the future in fuel research and production.

Related Stories

With many companies investing heavily in algae-based biofuels, researchers from the University of Virginia's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have found there are significant environmental hurdles to overcome ...

Algae-based fuel is one of many options among the array of possible future energy sources. New University of Virginia research shows that while algae-based transportation fuels produce high energy output with minimal land ...

Let algae do the dirty work. Researchers at Rochester Institute of Technology are developing biodiesel from microalgae grown in wastewater. The project is doubly "green" because algae consume nitrates and phosphates and reduce ...

Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Montana State University and Utah State University a three-year, $900,000 grant to study the oil produced by algae, which could be a renewable source of biodiesel.

Chemists reported development of what they termed the first economical, eco-friendly process to convert algae oil into biodiesel fuel — a discovery they predict could one day lead to U.S. independence from ...

Recommended for you

(Phys.org)—In the complex, somewhat rarified world of interactions between various flavors of RNA, one elusive goal is to understand the precise regulatory relationships between competing endogenous RNA ...

The ability to precisely and accurately change almost any part of any genome, even in complex species such as humans, may soon become a reality through genome editing. But with great power comes great responsibility ...

Coast redwoods are famous for being the tallest trees in the world, but their height is not the only thing that sets them apart. Unlike most conifer trees, coast redwoods can reproduce by sprouting from cut stumps, fallen ...

A team led by University of Vienna researchers has developed a way to identify and sort single microbial cells with the help of probes that use heavy water (laced with deuterium) and Raman microspectroscopy.

BTW - how do they plan to isolate/de-water the algae economically since the cell size of Nannochloropis is so small??

The algae produce lipids, and lipids separate naturally from water. As for releasing GM algae into the environment, it is extremely unlikely that any changes introduced that make the algae better at producing fuel would benefit them in the wild. They would be at a severe competitive disadvantage with wild algae. It's not very different than domestication of other organisms. Anyways, compared to the alternatives, the risk is small.

They keep jumping the gun by focusing on fuels right away. Chemicals that are now produced from petrochemicals are valuable and easier to distribute to customers i.e. industries rather than gas stations. This saves oil and develops the technology and markets needed to feed the nascent industry.

Please sign in to add a comment.
Registration is free, and takes less than a minute.
Read more

Click here to reset your password.
Sign in to get notified via email when new comments are made.